Books, authors and all things bookish

Favorite fiction of 2009 from the L.A. Times

December 3, 2009 | 4:30
pm

There are 25 books in the list of the Los Angeles Times 2009 fiction favorites. It includes some authors you might expect -- Orhan Pamuk and Alice Munro -- as well as new talents like Maile Meloy, above.

LA Times 2009 fiction favorites

"The Angel’s Game" by Carlos Ruiz ZafónA struggling young writer in 1920s Barcelona accepts a lucrative, diabolical assignment commissioned by a shadowy client.

"The Anthologist" by Nicholson BakerMeet Paul Chowder, a poet, editor and procrastinator whose character sheds autobiographical light on his creator.

"Chronic: Poems" by D.A. PowellLove, the poet writes, has the ability to turn a person inside out.

"The City & The City" by China MievilleA detective investigates a crime in an Eastern European-flavored fantasy world in which cities and realities overlap in unexpected ways.

"The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis" by Lydia DavisSpanning 20 years, the four story collections here show the author in full command of language and imagery, playing the reader like a master.

"Everything Matters!" by Ron Currie Jr.In rural Maine, a young man struggles with his family, and his prophetic powers, as the world braces for the apocalypse.

"The Financial Lives of the Poets: A Novel" by Jess Walter A husband and father turns to the drug trade to try to get out of a financial hole after he gets laid off from his reporting job in this darkly funny novel.

...more fiction favorites after the jump

"Inherent Vice" by Thomas PynchonThomas Pynchon goes noir ..... or sort of, in this novel that takes place in late 1960s L.A.

"It’s Beginning to Hurt" by James LasdunDevastating stories of the petty, malicious moments in people’s lives that signal graver changes to come.

"Lark & Termite" by Jayne Anne PhillipsStreams of consciousness converge as two siblings struggle with the lasting consequences of the Korean War on memory and their family.

"Love and Summer: A Novel" by William Trevor A married woman is at the mercy of her passions for a photographer in a story by a contemporary Irish master.

"Love in Infant Monkeys" by Lydia MilletStories of our relationship to nature and the ways we foolishly try to stand outside it.

"The Museum of Innocence" by Orhan PamukThe protagonist of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s new novel takes romantic attachment to the extremes in a sensuous tale set in Istanbul.

"Once the Shore" by Paul YoonStories spanning 50 years about the effects of love, war and loss -- each rendered with careful lyricism.